AUCTIONED TO HER DAD’S MAFIA ENEMIES: A MAFIA AGE-GAP REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE (AUCTIONED SERIES Book 4)

A MOTHER’S TRUTH

I don’t even have a chance to pull the belt across my body before Antonio accelerates from the parking garage, the dark Mercedes SUV leaving a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes in its wake.

“What the fuck?” I say, staring at my grim-faced brother. Antonio is usually serious, but today, he looks like he’s facing the grim reaper.

“Don’t make me talk about it, Alexis. Please.”

The please guts me.

We’re going to Carmella Lambretti’s sister’s apartment to ask her if what Enzo said is true. Did Carlo believe she was someone else’s child? Who is Aemelia’s father? Antonio barely ever says please. I didn’t think it was within his vocabulary.

“Do you need me to drive?” I ask, worried his mind is elsewhere.

“No.” He lets out a ragged-sounding breath. “I don’t want to think.”

“Look,” I say, smoothing my hands down my thighs. “What happened with Aemelia…”

I stop as he makes a desperate sound in his throat.

“We shouldn’t…” He stops abruptly, the rest of the sentence becoming a gasp that he traps in his mouth. “Just put the damned radio on.”

“If she was Mario’s, we’d know,” I say. “We’d see it in her. We’d recognize her.”

He nods, but there’s still a fraction of doubt in his mind and that’s all it takes to drive him crazy.

We drive across town in silence. The gun cradled beneath my jacket is as warm as my body, ready for anything, but from the tension in the car, it’ll be Antonio who leads this discussion. When we pull up outside the dilapidated apartment block, we both peer up. So this is where Aemelia was staying. This place is a shit hole no one should live in, but certainly not a woman like Aemelia. She deserves so much more; designer clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, the best that can be bought.

“Second floor,” he says, throwing the door open without looking around. Nothing like my cautious, suspicious brother.

I follow with my hand under my jacket, ready because if Antonio isn’t on his game, someone has to be.

We step into the building, the stench of mildew and cheap liquor clinging to the peeling walls. The hallway is dimly lit, a single flickering bulb casting long, eerie shadows. The elevator is out of service—no surprise—so we take the stairs, footsteps echoing with every step.

When we reach the second floor, Antonio raps his knuckles hard against a door marked with deep scratches, the number barely hanging onto the wood. A shuffle sounds from inside, followed by the slow, deliberate slide of a chain lock.

The door cracks open an inch, and a thin, gaunt face peers out. A woman—mid-forties, maybe older, but life has taken its toll. Carmella Lambretti.

Her eyes widen when she sees Antonio. “Venturi,” she breathes, voice rough from years of smoking.

“Open the door, Carmella.”

She hesitates, but the dark intensity in Antonio’s expression and the roughness of his voice makes her obey. If she didn’t, he’d have kicked it in without breaking a sweat. The door swings inward, revealing a cramped, rundown apartment. The place reeks of stale smoke, sweat, and desperation.

A man slouches on the stained couch, his shirt wrinkled and speckled with old food. Aemelia’s brother? His glazed eyes flick toward us, then mist over. Strung out on something. Useless.

In the corner, an older woman sits in a recliner, wrapped in a blanket that looks as threadbare as she does. Her skin is gray, and her breath is wheezy. The smell of sickness clings to her like rot. Aemelia’s aunt Christina—if she’s even still alive.

Antonio looks around, scanning the terrible surroundings. If his heart isn’t breaking for Aemelia, he doesn’t have one anymore.

“What do you want?” Carmella says, her hand pressed to her throat. “Is Aemelia okay?”

“She’s okay,” I answer, giving Antonio a chance to formulate his scattered thoughts. He’s still gray as old water, his hands fisted at his sides, not with violent intent but like he’s braced to hold himself together.

“Then what?”

“Did you have an affair with Mario?”

The question slices through the room like a gunshot. Even I jolt, my spine snapping straight.noveldrama

Carmella stiffens and coughs, clasping her thin hand over her mouth. “What kind of question—”

Antonio steps forward, his presence swallowing the tiny space, making her recoil. “Don’t lie to me.”

Her eyes dart toward Aemelia’s brother, then back to Antonio. She must decide that CJ will be no help against Antonio. I want to laugh that she even considered him an option. “I—”

“Carmella.” Antonio’s tone is ice and her name grounds out through gritted teeth. “Tell me the truth.”

She swallows hard, her hands wringing together. She was a beautiful woman once. I remember thinking Carlo was a lucky man. She had all of Aemelia’s beauty and a laugh that could have made angels jealous. I study what life has done to her. Fifteen years have taken the toll of thirty. This is what will happen to Aemelia unless…

“It was a long time ago.”

A sharp exhale leaves Antonio’s lips, but he presses on, voice even but laced with lethal intensity. “Is Aemelia Mario’s child?”

Carmella flinches. Her silence stretches, long and weighted. She’s considering her options, weighing what she can gain, what she can lose. If she says no, what will that mean for Aemelia? If she says yes, would we release her, or want to keep her?

What would that make her? Our niece? I shudder, thinking of all the filthy thoughts I’ve had about her. What my brothers have done. No wonder Antonio looks like he wants to tear out of his own skin.

Antonio leans in, his body vibrating with menace. “We’re getting a DNA test,” he warns, his voice sharp enough to cut. “If you lie, we’ll know.”

Carmella’s gaze drops to the floor, and for a moment, she looks like she might crumble. She pulls her pink floral blouse closer to her throat and takes a step back, trying to put distance between her and my brother, but he only seems to expand into the space. But then she inhales, straightens her spine, and meets Antonio’s glare with a deadened expression.

“No,” she says. “Aemelia isn’t Mario’s child.”

The breath I was holding rushes out of me, but the nausea still lingers. Antonio stays motionless for a long moment, his jaw flexing, his hands tightening into fists.

“What difference does it make?” Carmella asks, studying us both. Too many of our emotions rest plainly on our faces.

“If she’s Mario’s,” I say, the words like shards of glass in my mouth, “then she’s family.”

Carmella’s face twists, the yellow of her skin flushing pink across her cheekbones. “She’s my family, and Carlo’s, though he was always too stupid to realize it. He didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve CJ, either. Didn’t deserve me.”

Sadness rolls off her. One bad choice led to a hard life. I stare at her son and the waste of life he’s become.

This isn’t what I want for Aemelia. Letting her go to return to this family is not an option.

No matter how much Carlo wanted to believe otherwise, no matter how much damage his paranoia caused, Aemelia was never Mario’s. But it doesn’t change the fact that we took her. Or that Carlo Lambretti isn’t going to play our game.

“Where is he?” I ask. “Where’s your deadbeat husband?”

She shakes her head. “If I knew, I would have sold that information to you after Mario—” Her breath hitches and tears well in her yellow eyes. She fumbles in the pocket of her beige slacks and pulls out a packet of cigarettes. Her hands tremble too much to take one from the packet, so I reach out to help her.

“All we want is an eye for an eye,” Antonio says.

The woman on the recliner laughs and wheezes. “An eye for an eye. You hoods reading the Bible these days? Don’t you know it also says thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery?”

“Chrissy, don’t.” Carmella moves towards her sister, who coughs like two sentences were enough to permanently steal her breath.

“They need to hear it, and what do I care if they don’t like it. What are they going to do? Kill me?” She laughs again, her watery eyes dancing. “Your brother was happy to stick his dick where he had no business, and Carlo wanted revenge for the disrespect. Now you want revenge for revenge. Where does it end?”

“We’re talking about a cold-blooded assassination,” Antonio says, although it sounds to me like he’s trying to convince himself more than the two terrified women and half a man that are his audience.

“Look to your own heart, Antonio Venturi. Look at your own hands. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

My brother steps back like he’s been slapped. For all my mama’s religious aspirations, we haven’t been to church for years.

“Let my daughter go,” Carmella says.

“You started this.” Antonio’s voice is nothing but a hiss. “You and Mario started this. There is only one way to end it.”

“No.” The word is barely a wheeze from the mouth of a dying woman. “There are many ways to fix a problem. You just never learned how to choose the right one.”

“Come on,” I tell him, wary that this will descend into a deeper argument. All I want to do is get back to the penthouse and tell Luca that he doesn’t have to be sick over what he did with Aemelia.

And then, we have to figure out what the fuck we do next.

***

When we climb back into the SUV, Antonio starts the engine but remains stationary, his hands throttling the steering wheel.

“You okay?” I ask.

“I knew,” he says. “I knew she wasn’t but…” He hangs his head, and I feel his despair and relief deep in my bones.

“I know,” I say.

“If she was…”

“Don’t.” What the fuck is the point of going over that sick scenario? We have better things to do like find a place to eat before my stomach devours my insides and tell our brother that Aemelia is Carlo’s spawn who he doesn’t give two flying fucks about.

“Do you think Luca will let her go?” he asks, turning to face me.

I rub my jaw, uncertain of a lot of things. Why does Antonio look like the thought of releasing Aemelia is going to rip his heart through his mouth? Will Luca want to push harder to get someone in that fucking Lambretti family to break about Carlo’s location? How do I feel about Aemelia staying with us for longer, or leaving today?

I don’t want her to leave.

“I don’t know.”

“You like her?” he asks, his breathing harsh. Would it be so hard for him to hear, yes? Does he have actual feelings for the girl outside a desire to get inside her and break open the thing we paid for?

“She’s…” I pause to find the right word. Sexy. Gorgeous. Funny. Strong. Determined. Brave. “Intriguing.”

“And Luca?”

“Who the fuck knows what Luca wants.”

My words make his middle tighten, like I kicked him in the gut.

“We should let her go,” he says. “We’re no good for her. We’re too old. Too fucked up. Too tangled up in this shit.”

“And let her return to this? It’s like the Addams Family in there. Fuck.” I laugh, unable to hold it in, and Antonio snorts and then fixes his mouth into a grim line.

“It’s bad,” he says.

“So, we keep her?”

He shakes his head, but I can tell he wants to agree with me. He’s torn between doing the right things and doing what he wants, and it’s not a place either of us are that familiar with.

“For a while.”

For a while.

***

We don’t go back empty-handed. If we’re keeping Aemelia, even for a little while, she should have some creature comforts. We stop at a local trattoria and load up—fresh bread, meats, cheeses, olives, and a selection of pastries, including a box of cannoli and some sweets and chocolates. The scents of roasted garlic and freshly baked focaccia cling to our clothes as we step back onto the street.

We pass a small boutique, and Antonio lingers in front of the display. “Stay here,” he says.

I hang by the open door and watch as he picks up a thick, plush robe, running his fingers over the fabric like he’s trying to convince himself she needs it. He doesn’t say a word; he just pays in cash and walks out with the bag. I don’t press him. His actions speak loud enough.

By the time we get back to the penthouse, the sun has dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows over the tall building. Luca is waiting for us on the balcony, his arms crossed, face unreadable. The cool night air is thick with the scent of the city, mixing with the faint aroma of espresso from inside the house.

“Well?” he asks the moment we step through the doors.

Antonio grips the bag in one hand, tension radiating from him where there should be relief. “She’s not Mario’s.”

Luca exhales, long and slow. He nods once, absorbing the words. “The doctor will confirm for certain, but I knew Enzo was lying. And Carlo?”

“Doesn’t give a shit, according to Carmella.”

“Never did,” Antonio adds. “Enzo was right about that.”

Luca’s lips press into a thin line. “They could both be lying. Think about it. Enzo plants the seed of doubt about her parentage. Carmella plants the doubt about Carlo’s love. They’re trying to make us think it’s pointless to keep Aemelia. Pointless to try. The one person we haven’t heard from is Carlo. He’s the only one who knows the truth.”

“You think that rat has any humanity in him? He gunned down Mario like a fucking dog.”

Luca shrugs. “I don’t know.

“We should give it time,” Antonio says, like we agreed in the car, his voice low. “Make sure Enzo isn’t bluffing about his brother. If Carlo isn’t coming, we need to decide what we do next.”

Luca nods slowly. “And Aemelia?”

A moment of silence stretches between us, heavy with unspoken desires.

“We don’t let her go back to that,” Antonio finally says, his tone firm, resolute. “Not yet.”

Luca studies him, then me. “Not yet,” he agrees.